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(b) The following are, as in previous years, the sources from
which early ascertainments of crippling defects have been obtained
:—
(i.) As result of medical inspection, either " routine " or
" special."
(ii.) From information obtained by health visitors, school
nurses, and school attendance officers, as result of their district
work;
(iii.) From the various Maternity and Infant Welfare
Centres with which the School Medical Service works in close
administrative control, and
(iv.) From the Tuberculosis Dispensary and Barking
Tuberculosis After-care Committee.
(5) FINDINGS OF MEDICAL INSPECTIONS.
The arrangement was commenced in January, 192-1, of keeping
medical inspection cards at the various schools in preference
to the central office, and the practice continued throughout the
year. The medical records of individual children are now available
at school, and the teacher has first-hand information of cases
requiring his particular notice, an individual record of previous
infectious disease—important in exclusion of doubtful contacts
fiom an infected household—and furthermore a complete record
of all children referred from routine inspections for treatment,
whereby he may at times be able to exercise his influence with
otherwise indifferent parents. In the case of local migrant children,
the difficulty is avoided of finding respective medical inspection
cards under the old system from the central office, in so far
as the necessary interchange will take place between schools on
the part of attendance officers. Inspection cards need only be
brought to the central office for record purposes after inspection,
so that particulars may be available for statistical purposes.
Table 6, appendix (a), gives a return of defects found in the
course of routine medical inspections during the year, some of
the noteworthy defects so discovered being considered more particularly
below.